“I don’t arrest anyone. I prosecute cases.”
“Right. Well, let’s just say that if anyone ever offers you some sort of colorful little pills in the shape of cartoon characters, you should decline.”
“MDMA,” I say in understanding. “I do know what’s on the streets, since it’s all written up in the police reports. I’ve even seen it firsthand in evidence.”
“Well, don’t tell any of your cop friends about the Pescis unless you’re willing to try to make a living selling ice cream in the winter.” Waving a hand at the shop, he says, “They had no choice but to close or branch out. It’s a necessity, not greed. These families have mortgages and bills to pay like everyone else. But I’m guessing you’ve never spent a day trying to figure out if you should pay the past-due electric bill or get groceries.”
“And you have?” I ask him.
Tristan shakes his head before tossing his phone into the cupholder. Pulling away from the curb, we head for the address he put in his GPS. “No, thankfully, my family never had to struggle to make ends meet. But I grew up with plenty of people who did. And for those people, they do what they have to do to survive. You should think about that the next time you ask a judge to throw the book at them.”
“So, you’re saying I take my privilege for granted?”
“Yes. I know everything inyourworld is black and white. But there are plenty of good people who live in the gray area. There are reasons they do what they do, and most of the time, it’s not just to be a dick or because they’re evil.”
“Says the criminal.”
“Says the criminal,” he agrees.
“Do I even want to know all the crimes you’ve committed or why they were done?”
“Probably not,” Tristan replies.
“I’m guessing that you have killed men before, right?”
“Yes.”
“Why? What did they do for you to think they deserved death by your hand?” I ask, genuinely curious to know more about his life and the choices he’s made.
“Well, let’s see. The last men I killed were guards who worked for…a bad man who had taken Zara. That’s Creed’s wife. They worked for the man who took her daughter and stoodby while he tortured Zara, carving letters into her chest and burning her. I took out the guards to rescue her daughter and two nannies who were innocent women, barely twenty years old, while Creed went after Zara and the man who hurt her.”
“Wow,” I mutter as I consider that whole complicated situation.
“What would you have done in that situation?” He doesn’t sound angry as he focuses on the road, simply curious as well. “If you were me? If you were Zara, what would you have done?”
“I don’t know,” I answer honestly as I stare out at the people and businesses passing us by. “While I would hate it, I think I could kill to save my child’s life. Or any innocent child’s life. But only if there was no other way to handle the situation, like arresting the men.”
“So, you would be okay with officers getting shot, possibly killed responding to that scenario? What about the girl and the women getting hit by exchanged gunfire when the men refuse to go down without a fight?”
“You make some good points,” I admit.
“Sometimes, in my gray world, it’s better to take a few lives who deserve to die than to let innocents become victims.”
“That’s the only time you’ve taken a life, when you had to choose between them or innocent lives?”
“Not always. Sometimes it’s just good old self-defense.” Glancing over at me, he says, “You’ve been in that situation before. You know first-hand how it feels to make the snap decision to keep breathing by killing someone else.”
“Yes, I do know what that feels like,” I agree. “I didn’t even hesitate last night. I always thought I would if I faced someone with a gun, but I just wanted him to die instead of me.”
“You couldn’t have shot to wound, or he would’ve killed you,” Tristan points out.
“I know. And I don’t feel bad about it. The only thing I feel guilt for is hiding his body. And that’s because I have to meet with the families of victims all the time who just want some closure. Most never get it. That cop’s family won’t get any. They’ll always wonder.”
“Letting them wonder is better than going to prison.”
“If it was self-defense, and in normal circumstances, I would’ve called the police and explained everything.”
“But it wasn’t normal circumstances. You were caught in the gray area where doing the right thing could’ve gotten you killed, so you had to do the wrong thing.”
